The next phase of the lockdown: The impact on home-workers

05 May 2020

Tim Oldman, founder and CEO at Leesman has warned of the need to reflect on mass home-working and the initial data which suggests the biggest pressure points are around social connectivity and employees' abilities to maintain a healthy work life balance.

According to Oldman, if we don’t analyse the shortcomings and success stories carefully, we leave ourselves wide open to misinterpretation.

"It’s naïve to think that everyone will work from home for a few months and then return to the office just like it was before," he said.

"There are so many variables to consider. For instance, one of the problems that employers are going to face when lockdown is gradually lifted is who comes back to the office and when. Should the least productive employees working from home go back to the office first, for example? Or do we allow the business divisions who have the most technological problems in working remotely connectivity at home return first? An inability to answer these questions risks stoking the anxieties of an already agitated and somewhat confused workforce."

Oldman believes the impact that home-working is having on employees and employers remains relatively unknown, while uncertainty about how long this will last is adding to employees’ fears.

He continued: "Our initial data suggests the biggest pressure points are somewhat unsurprisingly around social connectivity, but perhaps more surprising, also around employee ability to maintain a healthy work life balance - the one thing home working was previously seen as an aid to.

"We urgently need to know which tasks are suffering, and which might improve. Only then will we have sufficient understanding on who goes back to work, when, and why."